New Delhi: The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has started the process to engage a consulting firm for developing a long-term vision, implementation plan, road map and institutional framework for implementing the ambitious 'One Sun One World One Grid' plan. Under the One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) programme, India envisages to have an inter-connected power transmission grid across nations for the supply of clean energy, according to the request for proposal floated by the MNRE this week. The vision behind the OSOWOG mantra is 'The Sun Never Sets' and is a constant at some geographical location, globally, at any given point of time. With India at the fulcrum, the solar spectrum can easily be divided into two broad zones viz. far East which would include countries like Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia etc. and far West which would cover the Middle East and the Africa Region, it stated. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has a critical role to play … [Read more...] about MNRE begins process to engage consultancy for One Sun One World One Grid plan

By Bipul Chatterjee and Kishan S Rana Connectivity enables trade. While this is an ancient story, we sometimes tend to forget this simple logic. Our penchant for looking at the whole tree, as against the eye of a parrot, tends to push us towards debating trade issues in technical and esoteric language, at times far removed from ground realties. We have to first grasp the basics of trade and also keep in mind that talking about trade possibilities is rather different from making trade possible. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cross-border trade between India and Bangladesh has, once again, underlined this simple fact. For a large number of basic necessities, including commodities such as onions or salt, Bangladesh is dependent on India. Nothing wrong with that as nobody can or should produce everything. However, due to legitimate health-related concerns, during this global pandemic, land borders, through which bulk of Indo-Bangla cross-border trade takes place, are firmly … [Read more...] about View: Fostering Indo-Bangla trade relations, connectivity is the ‘mantra’

Dr Sujeet Ranjan, Executive Director, The Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS)&Sahil Sharma,food technologist and public policy consultant at CFNS Although India has made enormous developments in science, medicine, information technology and various other disciplines, and has experienced exceptional economic growth over the past decade, malnutrition remains unacceptably high. India is amongst the leading economies of the world and envisages to become $5 trillion by 2024-25. However, currently the quality of life of many of Indian citizens is not coherent with this growth story. Poor nutrition is a major cause of other health problems in the country, including high infant and maternal mortality. We identify malnutrition as a multifaceted and multi-dimensional issue, affected by poverty, insufficient food consumption, inequitable food supply, inappropriate infant and child feeding and care practices, equity and gender disparities, poor hygienic and environmental settings … [Read more...] about Fighting Malnutrition by Tackling Food Insecurity